So good job theymos, for once again increasing the entry barrier for any user without enough money to waste on an contemporary art piece or a lamborguini to boost his stats.
Please let me know where I can purchase a Lambo for the price of a solitary merit or a Copper Membership, or stop with the dramatic exaggeration. These idiots need to get one merit, and if they can't achieve that or afford the ten dollars for a Copper Membership then they should find another 'job'. There is no entry barrier to posting here and that's the crux of the whole issue in the first place as anyone is free to post away without limitation (other than the spam-control wait times) and when they can get paid for that it just becomes a recipe for disaster. I actually don't think there's enough barriers to be able to start earning from posting here and you should have to have actually achieved something before you're allowed to earn from posting and begging or buying a merit certainly doesn't qualify someone to do so.
I may have used an extreme example but I thought it was obvious as a cheesy joke. I never meant it at all the way you understood it, the art piece or lambo just meant an extreme example of the kind of posts that get traction, and subsequently merit on the forums.
And I thought the whole point of User ranks was exactly that, "you should have to have actually achieved something before you're allowed to earn from posting". The economy made itself, anything below Junior member is most of the time completely irrelevant in sig campaigns. Other more elitist campaigns only accept hero and legendary members and make the barrier to entry even higher, I don't mind all that.
The second example that was introduced is Trust, which is a ((((little)))) similar to the merit system in the fact that only DefaultTrust members can paint others in green, but is still a great indicator because it has CONTEXT once you click someone's trust. And the fact that there isn't just + and -, the 0 also MEANS something.
And finally, Merit. The centralized limited supply currency. I objectively can't see anyone agreeing to this system, unless they're renowned members who can use connections and biased feelings from other fellow sMerit owners to exchange points.